"Blessing" and its Role in Building of Jewish Identity in the Pentateuch

One of the important social functions of religion is identity building. Religions determine characteristics for their followers that by creating similarities and differences with others, create correlations between them and distinguish them from others. In this way, they define the identity of their followers by creating a border between insiders and others. In historical religions, this process of identification continues in the context of history. Jewish identity, as an ethnic-religious identity, has been formed throughout history and is still subject to ambiguity and controversy to this day. The Pentateuch, the basis of the Old Testament, describes the birth and formation of the Jewish people. In this text, several components and processes can be found that play a role in the construction of Jewish identity, including the covenant, the patriarchs, the choice, the ethnicity, the law, etc. "Blessing" is also one of these components. In this article, with an interdisciplinary approach, the function of blessing as an identity-making process in the text of Pentateuch is explained and analyzed. Blessing is shown to be related to the definition of ethnic boundaries, concepts, and religious institutions, and to the definition of Jewish identity.